


And So It Was

by orphan_account



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Asperger Syndrome, Death Threats, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Implied/Referenced Psychological Disorders, Slow Burn, Social Anxiety, Survivor Guilt, selective mutism, tics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-08-01 11:23:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16283675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Rainbow is made up of the most elite of soldiers. Sharp minds and sharper aims put together in an unstoppable team. The mentally substandard has no place among them. That is why there are no weak links in Rainbow.It’s a shame how wrong they are.





	1. Beginnings

The body bags lie dumbly on the dirt. A sporadic line of glimmering black bundles zipped up tight and tossed out into the blazing sun. The black sheens soak up the heat, and the warmth shimmers above them in a mirage, reminiscent of souls, or spirits, trying to escape their plastic tombs. Alone. No one to claim a name to a face embraced by a black cocoon. Spat on by passersby heading down to honor the attack on their neighboring University. Loathed, forgotten, and thrown down with little regard. Left to rot in the sun. 

They were all terrorists after all. Bloodthirsty killers had no right to a mournful ceremony if one at all. 

As counter terrorists, it’s what soldiers think. The White Masks were a worldwide threat with no reason for their massacres. Their corpses were bound to a line of mass graves, and then Hell. 

The bags were tossed haphazardly into the back of a truck. A college student, wearing her University’s name proudly on her sweater, tossed up crude gestures and screamed profanities at the corpses as the truck ambled its way down the road. The student had all the right to be angry. The attack on Lea-Wick’s College of The Arts heavily reminded the world of Bartlett. Though on two different soils, the impact remained the same, and futures were stifled by crude orange fumes. 

Reporters roost at the edge of the yellow tape. Yellow hazard suits crouch over students, strapping masks over their faces and carrying them on stretchers to waiting ambulances. 

The White Masks had left yet another memorial in their wake, and the operators had created yet another sea of black. 

A hollow victory on both sides it seemed. 

 

And so it was. 

 

Mark Chandar was born with a brain beyond the comprehension of anyone. Before he was even a year old, he spoke in full sentences. At two, he taught himself how to read, and would sit on the floor holding out a newspaper in his small arms, intrigued with the latest discoveries and politics. His family was unsure on how to raise a child who exceeded the intelligence of his grade. Mark knew this. He saw them walk on eggshells when the counselor offered them suggestions and did not mind when he jumped up one grade to the next. He enjoyed being the first to raise his hand around students over his age, but problems began to arise. 

While life was a loud, chaotic, environment completely out of his control, Mark wished for absolute silence. The noise was a straitjacket, his mind wrapped inside and struggling. He could not think when the hum of chatter reverberated in his brain. His ideas could not surface, nor could he comprehend when so much was screaming all at once. Grades slipped, thoughts were left in shambles, and finally, his parents drew a line in the sand. 

A solution was found in the strangest of ways. It worried him for a time, and the teachers tried all they could to help him, but time moved on and he not only accepted it but welcomed it. He bid farewell to the noise and cultivated this newfound strength.

At twelve, the silence graduated him early from secondary school. Thirteen was a year at a well-earned internship where, hidden and silent behind a computer screen, he invented the sharpest eye in digital surveillance. A quiet transition at fourteen into the heart of Cambridge, and they watched in shock as his engineering rivaled and exceeded that of the professors. He was named a genius, a one-in-a-million, a bright light in the future of science. It was no surprise that, after inventing Moni, the government wanted their hands on his mind. 

They hadn’t considered the person that came with it, however. The operators were not patient individuals, nor as intelligent. They burst into rooms weapons drawn on the field and stormed into rooms uninvited at Base. They gave him the most pitying of looks every time he silently shuffled into another room or declined an offer with a small wave of a hand. It meant nothing to him. As long as he called out a hostiles location and when he placed down a barricade or Moni, he had done his part. There was no need to make any more noise than necessary. 

He thanked his power, and he thanked the unspeakable horrors that locked his voice inside his mind. 

 

And so it was. 

 

Thatcher had some experience with religion, although never practiced it himself. He learned from those around him. Young lads raising rosseries and charms to their lips, whispering to whatever Gods they had to keep them alive another day. Hymns muttered restlessly as bullets flew overhead. Closed eyes at a meal, hands of like-minded individuals linked together in silence. He witnessed their prayers and pleas to the powers above to give them strength, hope, and longevity. 

One such man was Isaac, a devout follower of God and a great friend of Mike’s, even before the army, even before Thatcher. Isaac had a face that bled such innate happiness he could light up a room. Every day was a new beginning for him, and even when he was rushing into battle, Isaac looked at the positive. He said that this outlook on life was because of the two crosses he wore with his dog tag, because he prayed every night because God was on his side, and Mike believed in that. Isaac’s luck seemed to be infinite. 

Then, 1982, during a retreat, Mike failed to notice the enemy in the underbrush. Selflessly, Isaac dove in front of Mike, in front of the onslaught of bullets, to buy his friend enough time to raise his gun. Mike buried a bullet in two heads instead of one, but he did not notice until Isaac’s corpse fell to the ground along with the enemy. The first thing he saw was the two crosses, stained ruby and hanging over Isaac’s shoulder, flipped towards the ground. 

It was then he realized God did not save young men until they crossed life. Perhaps, the life of a soldier belonged to something else. Thatcher was not religious but had begun to believe in some form of a higher power. How else would he, an old man of the military, still be alive while men twice as young ended up in the ground? Men that dragged their talismans of worship onto the battlefield to stay close to their Gods, and what did he have? His hands, calloused and scared from the docks, and a family photo. He had survived Operation Nimrod, Goose Green, and Bravo Two Zero, and somehow a soldier’s endless sacrifice and devotion to powers were not enough to keep them alive for one bloody war. 

Who the hell was he in the scheme of war and sacrifice? What kind of judgment blew out the brains of his platoon and yet kept him alive with only a bullet in his side? What kind of judgment had boys bleed from their eyes and drag their feet to a doctor, holding their guts in their hands? What kind of judgment kept him walking on the bodies. If anyone were to die, it should have been him. He was just a man with no loyalty other than the army, but a young man had so much to live. 

There was a malevolent power in charge of war, Thatcher came to realize, and through it’s twisted fingers had spun a horrible string of fate. 

 

And so it was.

 

His uncle had told him he had an obsession over machinery. Marius called it an affinity. He gravitated towards machines like a moth to a candle. He would disassembling and reassembling them, over and over, learn everything he could because it was interesting and complicated. Manipulating the complex soothed and comforted him from the stresses of the world. 

He was only fifteen when he stumbled across the tracks of a dear that led him to an old abandoned garage. Inside was a plum Porsche 356A, engine ripped to shreds by rats, body dented and caked in rust, and the front crumpled by a head-on collision. The vehicle was beyond repair, and yet, Marius made it his goal to restore it.

He pulled away every bolt, screw, and metal plate and organized it on the garage floor, scrubbed the rust from every piece, and painted over all the scrapes and dents he could find. He accompanied his uncle to his work and asked him all the questions he would permit, and scoured the junkyard to stow away what he needed. Hours surrounded by lulling scent of metal, oil, and rust pulled him into a trance, and some nights he would wake up on the dusty floor, clutching his wrench to his chest. The garage, slowly, became his second home.

His uncle was concerned by the musk specter wafting around their house, and one afternoon, came home early to follow Marius’ footprints in the dying light, only to find his nephew not with crude hallucinogens as he expected but half asleep bent over the inner workings of an engine. Marius has looked horrified as if he had committed some unsaid crime, but his uncle explained he was more than happy to help with his project. His uncle began to bring presents home in the back of his truck, and slowly but surely, the restoration moved closer to a reality. 

Their partnership did not last long. Reunification brought a new world, and his uncle’s small job as a mechanic became one with the Bundespolizei Aviation Group. They had to leave the old house and abandon the plum vehicle, pieces still scattered about the garage floor. 

Marius became a mechanic for BPOL and found slight comfort in the mechanics of helicopters. Then, when helicopters were not enough, he moved onto designing his own contraptions. His Active Defense System helped lower his anxiety, and as an added bonus saved GSG 9 in the Indian Ocean. 

Rainbow granted him all the funds he needed to fulfill his desires in the workshop, but nothing would ever replace poor old Maggie.

 

And so it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story will be a one-shot series with an overarching narrative. Please bear with me as I write this, for I have never done anything like this before, but I hope you enjoyed the start of this huge passion project of mine.
> 
> If anything seems grammatically wrong please feel free to notify me.
> 
> Edit: I JUST noticed, like, JUST now at 1:47pm on October 14th, that the three characters I’m focusing on all start with the letter M. How crazy is that?!


	2. The Galley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mute and Glaz are placed in an undercover operation at Carter College of The Arts, still reeling after the act of terrorism upon their campus.

Mute did not doubt Six’s decisions. Though many times her words were fueled only by her fury, and not at the same level of intuition as he, the execution that came after was always in success. No, he did not doubt her, he just felt uncomfortable in an undercover operation, with Glaz. 

He knew why she had chosen them. Glaz was an expert at observation and Mute could adapt to any situation. Both of them had prior experience due to the Bartlett University Crisis, and both liked to keep their mouth shut. 

That did not change Mute’s concerns. Experienced or not, Rainbow was not one for espionage. They were trained to intervene when normal forces were unable to handle a situation, not skulk around in a student made art exhibit watching out for the possibility of White Masks among the school body. But orders were orders, no matter how much he despised the lack of a mask over his face or that he was standing inches away from his least favorite person on Rainbow: not because he hated the man, Mute just had a hard time trusting anyone who had too much secrecy about them. 

After being added to the arsenal of Rainbow, he took it upon himself to look into all his soon-to-be colleagues' backgrounds. He had been disturbed with what he saw from some, unamused in others, and skeptical in just a few: one of them being Glaz. The man had a simple background, and commonality never sat right with him. To Mute, that meant something was expertly hidden. He would find it eventually, but for now, he would have to deal with the sniper and his silent enthusiasm as they browsed the exhibit. 

The Gallery itself was an emotionally charged display of works, all created by the students and focusing on the attack on their school. It was their version of a protest against the White Masks and as a memorial to those they lost. The message was screaming from every wall in three prominent colors: orange, white, and red. 

As they wandered from one room to the next Glaz whispered his detail-centric criticisms and Mute restrained himself from shoving his hands over his ears. The crowd had grown, and the constant murmur of sympathies and emotionally impacted visitors grew to a dull roar and then the screams of voices long past were shedding his mind apart he couldn’t breathe. In sudden desperation, he looked over the crowd for any form of sanctuary and spied a lonely bench two rooms over. Mute maneuvered past the sea of grey college sweaters and collapsed on the small wooden block. He placed his trembling hands over his ears and shut out the world. Then, slowly, with the pace of his breaths, pieced his thoughts back together. 

The screaming faded away and as he opened his eyes Mute’s vision was assaulted by hues of orange. The wall facing the bench had been completely covered in loose and furious brushstrokes. His eyes darted back and forth, following the frantically applied slashes of paint from one side of the wall to the other, then sitting back he followed the diagonals in the storm of orange until he settled on heavy strokes of white, creating a hauntingly familiar image of a mask emerging from the sea of orange fog. As he peered at the white mass of strokes, his eyes and mind could not settle. In the attempt to find familiar features within the paint, the loose brushstrokes blurred the line between normality, to something monstrous and grotesque. Another slightly visible diagonal trailed his eyes down the to bottom of the wall, where, at first, he only saw orange, but his eyes no longer trusted what it saw, so he squinted, and suddenly shadows defining the floor transformed to silhouettes of students, writhing on the ground. Mute chuckled as his mind pieced the painting together, and soon he was staring at three ghostly amalgamations drifting over corpses as they pushed through the orange fog. 

“Do ya see it?” asked a voice to his right. 

Mute turned his head and came face to face with a student he recognized. After burying a bullet in the final suicide bomber, he had found her and another underneath a desk, silently gasping for breath, their faces covered with their sweaters in futile attempts to block out the gas. He had carried both of them to the waiting arms of paramedics, and she had looked him directly through his mask and signed ‘thank you.’ It felt strange seeing her now, grey college sweater wrapped around her waist and a dopey grin spread across her face, though the fear in her eyes had not changed. 

“What?” 

“Lea-Wick Johnson,” she said, offering him her hand. “That’s my contribution to the gallery. The Orange Wall, probably my best piece of this semester, an’ we ain't even in school!” She let out a chuckle and shook her head. “Most folk jus’ stare blankly at if before movin’ on. I’m glad ya sat an’ worked it out for yourself.” 

Mute shook her hand and was glad to be wearing sunglasses. His eyes darted to anywhere but her face. Lea-Wick hopped off the bench and stood beside her painting, waving her arms towards the three figures. 

“So, wha’d’ ya think?” 

Mute leaned back on the bench. Her stare was growing in intensity, burning his chest and clamping over his throat. Lea-Wick was asking for too much, but the stare was unbearable. He made a decision and cleared his throat. Maybe this would be enough. 

"It’s—" the word slipped thickly off his tongue and his mind scrambled away. Through the fog he searched and grasped for words, Lea-Wick urging him on with her intense stare, and during the pause and short silence he settled on "terrifying." 

Lea-Wick placed a hand on her hip and raised her eyebrows at Mute. The smile on her face seemed to stretch up to her ears. “Terrifying, eh?”

Mute gave her a quick nod and placed his hand over his mouth as he peered past her to the white figure beyond her shoulder, shifting between a mask and a ghostly smile. The artist looked back to her painting, and then she laughed, monstrous and giddy.

“Well! That’s the base of it, ain’t it? A whole lotta scary white folk shovin’ poisoned smoke down our lungs. Must be terrifying to have your life on the line ‘cause of the air you breathe. Yeah, terrifying it is!” She leaned towards Mute as if sharing a secret. “Ya know, those White Masks was only a half of the fear. I was truly inspired by one of them secret counter-terrorist soldier dudes. He shot up the room I was in, killed all the baddies in a few shots. He wore all black, all padded up an’ jumblin’ about, couldn’t see much, but I distinctly remember his mask. It had some, sorta, cross over where the mouth was. It kinda became, the inspiration for me, ya know? The white figures morph between those terrorists and that X-mask ‘cause it kinda looked like a monster in my head. Pretty cool right?” 

“Yeah…” 

Lea-Wick shot him a giddy glance. Her eyes darted to the sea of grey in the next room and waved. She gave Mute a small jab on the shoulder, thanked him for his notes, and skipped off into the crowd. Mute watched her leave, then collapsed in on himself, wheezing out the breath he had held since her talk. He took one last look at the painting, at the grinning white mask, at the furious orange slashes, and bolted out of the gallery and into the cold open air. For the next thirty minutes, he waited, keeping an eye out until Glaz shuffled by and gave a quick pat on his shoulder. Mute looked to the sniper, but Glaz shook his head and shrugged. Silently the two walked past Carter College of The Arts, down to the small apartment they would be staying at until their undercover operation was over. 

That night, in a feverish dream, the morphing face cackled at him with lips bloodied by red twine. 

And so it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this next installment. Got to love that social anxiety am I right????? :D
> 
> On to other things. Why is it so easy for writers to type up 7,000 word one-shots, and yet here I am having major difficulty just getting up to 1000 words? Teach me your ways, please, writers of AO3.


	3. Imperfect Machinery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jäger runs into dilemma after dilemma, and a well-built contraption breaks.

The familiar ping of a loosed pin drew Jäger’s attention to the window. Through the orange smoke, his eyes locked onto a glass window, and he signaled to Blitz crouched on the far side of the room. No sooner had he raised his hand when the glass shattered and a dark green grenade flew through the empty frame. The world slowed for Jäger. Seconds crawled by agonizingly slow in anticipation as he pressed his back to the wall. The ADS by Jäger’s side reeled it’s mechanical head and focused its red eye on the intruding projectile. Then, with one final click and a ping, Magpie hurdled a projectile of its own. The sound of led slamming against wood reverberated across the room, but the gredane jumped undisturbed across the floor. He barely has time to shout before the object exploded into Blitz’s shield, raised seconds before detonation. Blitz stumbled back, disoriented by the blow, allowing a white figure to burst into the room with a mass of wires tangled over their front. The white mask shouted a foreign phrase, most likely French, and dove at the Shieldbearer with a howl. 

Jäger made certain a bullet was buried between the eyes of the bomber. The gore spattered across the wall behind him, and the figure dropped lifelessly at Blitz’s feet. The Shieldbearer gave him a nod of thanks before both of them charged into the orange fray of the offending room. Two shots of Blitz’s rang clean, two silhouettes slammed against the ground. They waited, guns raised, counting the seconds in the void, then, IQ’s voice crackled through the comms. 

“No more hostiles.” She confirmed softly, and Jäger heard crying and gasping beyond her voice. “Good work. Return for decontamination” 

Blitz pat Jäger’s shoulder before shuffling off into the smoke. He waited until Blitz was out of sight and hearing, then turning his attention to the machine on the wall. Its red eye flicked back and forth, sporadic, unfocused, and imprecise. In a furor, Jäger tore the machine from the wall, then stormed out from the building into the insanity of the aftermath. Paramedics rushed by to assist the students and first responders writhing on the ground, coughing and gasping for breath. Shoving his weapons and machine to the side, a yellow suit sprayed him clean of poison.

He reclaimed his weapons, and IQ handed him the ADS. Water droplets rolled off her gear and mask onto the damp and dead grass. He shoved it the mechanism into its compartment. Blitz chuckled elbows resting on the shield and mask hanging slightly off his face. It did not take his long to notice the missing piece of their team. His eyes darted between the two, and IQ directed his eyes to the far side of the quad. It was where the main building of the school stood, orange smoke spilling from broken windows. No words needed to be said for soon their missing member appeared, dragging a struggling figure behind him. He shouted towards a group of first responders, and paramedics and student alike scrambled from the colorless figure stained red. Bandit took the honors of ripping off the terrorist’s mask and shoving a gun to his head. 

The terrorist was a middle-aged man, pale and sickly, with deep-set eyes. His laughter was wet with mucus and blood, and Jäger wondered what had made the man laugh in the first place. IQ kneeled before the terrorist and, with a gaze he had only ever seen directed at undetected batteries, asked him a question in what he assumed was French. The terrorist laughed once again and retorted in a spiteful sentence. The smile was slammed off his face in a second, and his face contorted to a growl gnashing with missing teeth. She asked him again, her voice laced with cold furor, in which he responded with something animalistic, blood spilling from his lips. The terrorist’s laughs were cut short. His brains were blown straight out of his head and across the grass. Students screamed and cowered from the blast, and one particular young man fell on his knees, mouth agape and eyes glowing like headlights. The commotion died fast, the quad was cleared of life and death, but GSG 9 stayed where they were, IQ speaking on a private line. Jäger’s curiosity got the best of him, and as she finished the call he activated his comm to ask, “(What did she say)?” 

IQ turned to her team and stated in a monotonous tone, “(Pack up. We’re leaving. Six’s orders).”

 

And so the silence evolved into an anxious and furious air, wrapping around the group of four all the way back to base. IQ and Bandit were gone before the landing gear touched solid ground, leaving Blitz and him to shuffle into the empty barracks. Blitz left a few minutes later, opting for some fresh air rather than the strong metallic scent of the base. That was how Jäger found himself alone in the workshop, picking apart the ADS one screw and plate at a time. The familiar contraption between his fingers sends him off into the dreamy cityscape of Düsseldorf, and his heart swells at the faint and long forgotten smell of rusted metal, old vinyl, and damp leather. 

But it is gone all to quickly, forcefully pulled from his grasp by the groan of the workshop door. A familiar mechanic makes his presence known, Matryoshka held passionately in his hands. 

“Your gear’s still on.” Fuze remarks, examining the ADS Jäger had carefully disassembled and scattered across the table. 

Indeed it is, scorching against his skin, but it did not matter. Pieces of metal slam against the table as Jäger scrambles to his feet, but the Spetsnaz catches his arm.

“Where are you going?” The mechanic asks. “Your ADS is all over the table.” 

“I’ll clean it later.” 

The grip around his arm tightens. “No. Now. I have work to do.” 

“There is another table over there.”

Fuze scoffs and pushes the slightly taller engineer back into his chair. “Echo was not pleasant the last time if I remember.” 

It takes Jäger a second to catch onto the meaning, but he moves a portion of his work aside for Fuze to place his Cluster Charge. Nothing visibly seems wrong with the mechanism, but Fuze begins to pull apart the shell and examine the wires beneath its frame. Jäger buries himself back into his work, toying with a broken screw between his fingers as he examines a mass of wires attached to a board, the only unbroken part of a once assembled machine. His mind enters a daze but the presence of the mechanic across from his space blocks the long past sensations from returning because it’s not right he should be alone. It’s dead, he reminds himself, long gone, broken and abandoned in a decaying garage. It’s dead. It’s broken. It’s lost. Everything leaves eventually, he reminds himself, everything changes. The terrorists have changed. IQ’s eyes have looked beyond batteries, Bandit is focused on ranks, and Blitz takes his walks further and further away by the day. 

The screw flips out from his grasp and breaks the silence with a loud ‘crack!’ against the table. It spins around and around empty space to finally lay to rest at Fuze’s fingertip. The mechanic flicks it back to Jäger’s side and, momentarily, looks up from his work with a burning gaze. “Does your ADS need that much improvement?” He asks. 

“There is always room for improvement.” Jäger stares at a wire. It’s red and thick and he slits it from the rest of the machine. 

“That’s not improvement.” Fuze scoffs. “You’re destroying it.” 

A yellow wire tumbles from his grasp and down onto the floor. 

“Jäger.”

A blue wire disappears without a second thought. 

“Jäger!”

The horrid mass of wires strikes the wall, wires pulled loose from the impact, and clatters to the ground. Fuze has risen from his seat, staring at the German glaring at his mess on the floor. Then he runs.

He is glad he is still wearing his gear, Fuze would have mocked him. The gas mask easily conceals tears of rage and frustration. Jäger bursts into GSG 9’s empty barracks, rips off the mask and grabs the navy sweater hanging off the side of his cot. Hours later the light of GSG 9’s barracks displays brightly of his teammate’s return, but he is already far away, pacing and humming a meaningless tune in the dark, and triggered by a sudden bang in the distance, his hand slams against his head again and again and again. 

And so it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next part! 
> 
> My poor boy Jäger. T^T That broken ADS really upset him didn't it?


	4. Traitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike and Isaac have a discussion

Days after the attack on Lumière University, and the sullen return of GSG 9, in which half of the team reported to Six directly, every operator in Rainbow was handed a report and assignment in the form of a folder: an informal double-sided black plastic joke exploding out of itself with paper but within words of the utmost privacy. Thatcher's team had a plethora of reactions to the whole ordeal. Smoke had gone ahead and, credit to his name, angrily flung the file onto a training ground to gas the papers orange. Sledge had taken it tentatively, and upon flipping through placed it upon his desk and walked away before his hand could grasp the grip of his hammer. Mute spent days after his read in his workshop mindlessly tinkering away, and even longer on his computer typing away the hours in shock. Thatcher was the last of his team to peek into the secrets held within. Prepared with a small glass of spirits by his side, he flipped through pages marked with red stamps, and the anger that flowed through could have rivaled the sun itself.

The horror of the whole situation came in stages. First was a report on each of the schools that had been victims to the White Masks, those schools being Bartlett University, Carter College of The Arts, and Lumière University. It stated that, after an extensive investigation on each campus, particular employees and students had, in fact, been undercover. White Mask subordinates and enthusiasts had been biding their time within until the day arrived to usher in a group under the notion of either a local newsgroup or a tour only to don their masks in the center of campus and gas what had been their friends and co-workers. Further investigation would have to be done, but there was a reason to believe White Masks were still hidden within the student body. Furthermore, under the words of Six herself, five recruits of Rainbow, three of which Thatcher had trained himself, were incarcerated and under capital punishment for not only leaking information to the terrorist group but gunning down their entire platoon. The White Masks had planted their parasites deep into the inner workings of the military, leaving Rainbow, for the first time in its history, under threat.

Pages flew by in rapid succession. He could not believe it, he would not believe it, until three faces beamed at him, familiar, bright, and fake. He would have burned the pages right then and there, but the final sentence of briefing stopped him. A line of words, screaming in red and addressed and signed in Six’s refined penmanship.

 

_ All operators will be under surveillance until further notice. I thank you for your cooperation.  _

 

‘Surveillance’, Thatcher scoffed and threw the folder among SAS’ pile of rejects. He ran a hand over his face, then through his hair, exhaling sharply. This was unlike anything she had done before. He knew her well enough if their ‘heart-to-hearts’ in a sickly lit warehouse were defined as a form of bonding. He knew Six as someone who took immediate action, but not without having at least some sense of what her team would be facing, but then again this threat had no face. 

“But they have a motivation.” said a voice to his right.

Thatcher turned to glare at the young man who had pulled up a seat next to him, staring at a paper in his hands. His eyes scoured the page with a scowl, and a small tuft of hair settled between his creased eyebrows. Isaac placed the paper back into the folder, which had somehow ended up on his lap, and threw it back upon the pile. Then he waved, wiggling his fingers in the strange greeting he had started after returning from the front lines.

“Evening Mike”

“What are you doing here Isaac?” Thatcher rolled his eyes and grabbed the nearest incomplete file among the mess. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Your life is much more interesting than mine.” Isaac eyed the file in Thatcher’s hand

“Really? Paperwork is  _ interesting _ ?”

“Sure.” Isaac shrugged and settled back into his seat. “It beats what I do every day.”

“Then maybe you should do my work for me.”

Isaac shot him a mischievous look and the corners of his lips curled. “Maybe I should, old man.”

“Isaac.”

The young man let out a cackle, head falling over the back of the chair. Thatcher scoffed and turned his focus to the report. As he wrote, Isaac perched himself over his shoulder. In silence he wrote, the room growing darker as his pen glided over the paper, until his eyes strained against the dark. Finally, it was complete, and he moved it aside for another among the mess.

“Ey, Mikey?” Thatcher stopped mid-reach and turned to the young man still at his side. It had been a while since he had called him by a nickname. The darkness had swallowed his face, leaving nothing but his mouth and stark teeth.

“Yeah?” Mike turned on the lamp by the desk, but it did nothing to Isaacs face, instead casting deep shadows across the walls.

“What do you plan on doing now?”

Thatcher scrunched his nose as a strange fickle scent wafted into the room, and he moved back in his seat. Across from him, Isaac patiently waited. “The hell are you talking about?”

It was Isaac’s turn to scoff. “You’re under ‘surveillance’ Mike. You got to be prepared for the possibility—”  

“No!”

“Mike—”

“They were recruits Isaac. They weren’t even supposed to stay long. In and out. There’s no way in hell...”

“And yet the greatest operators of Rainbow are under suspicion.” Isaac’s hands danced around in the darkness. “The White Masks are after all of you. They’re smarter than any of you realized.”  

The fickle smell had begun to grow.

Isaac rose to his feet and paced around in the darkness. “They attacked schools, created a national emergency, for what reason? Look around you! The base is empty. They wanted to draw all of you out into the open.”

Thatcher pressed a hand to his nose, the air was beginning to thicken with blood.

“You out of all people should have realized this Mike. You felt it, I know you did. You felt dread the minute you met those recruits, and yet you said nothing and trained them. You taught them all that Rainbow taught you. They were going to become great soldiers, you were so proud of them, and then they gunned down their platoon.”

Flesh and smoke was all he could smell and his eyes watered.

“All their deaths could have been avoided, you know. If you had just listened to your instincts, they would still be alive and Rainbow would not be full of traitors.”

With those words Isaac drifted into the light revealing to him a brow blown out and oozing with pus and skin greened by rot and earth. Thatcher lurched away as the warm scent of putrid flesh and curdled blood hit his face.

And so it was that no one was present to hear him lose his battle to the overwhelming feeling of nausea, alcohol, and guilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God damn, this chapter was really difficult to write. Thatcher is one of my favorites, and yet I always get stuck on him. :(
> 
> Also... PLOT!


	5. The Bureaucrats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The United Nations speaks with Mute, and Six is not patient.

“Welcome.” said a robotic voice. “Please, take a seat.”

Mute warily shut the door behind him and surveyed the room with a frown. The area was confining; the table in its center barely fit the place. On either side of the table were two chairs, one illuminated by the light above, leaving the other in shadow, and seated upon it was a frighteningly familiar figure. Six unclasped her hands and gestured towards the open computer by her side. On the screen were four distorted figures all wearing what seemed to be the face of an animal. 

No wonder he was asked to wear his mask. This was not a typical briefing. 

He took a seat and placed his personal laptop at his side. The figures waited patiently before one of them spoke, their voice distorted beyond recognition and filtered with monotone. “Mute, a pleasure. You accomplished much during the Bartlett University Crisis, and we appreciate your team’s help at Carter.”

Mute would have remarked that Thatcher was, in fact, the leader of their team, but said nothing and instead nodded his head in thanks and understanding. After a few moments of silence, another voice spoke from the computer equally distorted and raw. “As to follow Rainbow’s guidelines, you shall not speak nor remove your mask during this time, and we shall not force any personal question of you. If you feel a desire to add any input, please address us via your computer. Six has already set everything for you. We do hope you do not mind.”

Six, still sitting impassively in the dark, sighed while Mute shot a protective hand over his laptop. The bureaucrats on the screen laughed at the less than subtle exchange between the two.

Mute was extremely protective over his laptop. In his defense, what he had done a few years prior would surely warrant such behavior. Back then, he was a frightened, ignorant, soldier, but terrors be damned. He glanced at Six and was taken aback when she slammed her hand against the table, then, jabbed a finger towards his device. “Mute. Get that up and running." Then, swerving towards the bureaucracy, she spat venomous words at the screen. 

Mute suppressed a sigh and blocked out her furor by searching through his laptop for any missing files. Six’s greatest strength lied in her brash and eloquent speech. The operators were used to it, but the bureaucracy was not faring well. Glancing around his computer, he noticed they almost looked to be pondering over her words. 

Then one of them laughed: not the reaction he was expecting, but it lifted the heavy air of the room. “My apologies Six. Mute, please redirect your attention to your screen.” 

Instantly his screen was flooded with faces. The range he could gather was from young adult to middle-aged, and all were diverse in every way, but he recognized some from the black folder. The five recruits, the White Masks recovered under Lumière University’s collapsed Aeronautical Engineering building and stopped at the student he had met at Carter’s gallery. His skin felt cold as he stared at Lea-Wick Johnson’s face, a face blotched in orange paint and a massive grin beaming with broken teeth, proudly holding a number to her chest. 

“You have seen her before. Correct?” Asked the screen.

“She talked to me at Carter’s gallery.” Mute typed. “She was discussing the symbolism behind her painting to me,” he added. 

“The Orange Wall. We know it well.”

Mute mused, his fingers wavering before he typed. “How so?” 

"The one with you was very passionate about it in their report.”

Six coughed, and another bureaucrat spoke, picking up where the other wavered. “Lea-Wick Johnson sabotaged the galley under the name of the White Masks. We believe the paint she had used on the wall was mixed with gasoline.”

“When did this happen?” 

“Twenty minutes ago."

“Lea-Wick Johnson was nothing more than an enthusiast," The first added, "but this proves that their reach is widespread and expanding."

“Which is why,” added another, “we called you here.”

Mute stiffened. 

“There needs to be an eye in Rainbow to keep tabs on specific operators; those who have interacted with criminals or Masks in the past.”

“You want me to snoop around and figure out if any of them have turned traitor?”

“Precisely, though you will not be tasked with all of them. There are four within Rainbow that we suspect under the names Thatcher, Smoke, Lion, and Bandit.”

And suddenly Mute understood why he was such an ideal pick. With shaking fingers, he typed, “I believe you should choose Sledge rather than myself, they know Thatcher and Smoke like the back of their hand.” 

Six spoke this time, crossing her arms and leaning into the light to expose her burning brown eyes. “It’s that reason we decided to keep them out of it. Sledge, Thatcher, and Smoke have worked together for a long time. They trust each other's words before my own.”

“So, because I am the newest addition to their team, I am less likely to be influenced.” Mute typed. 

“They catch on fast.” Murmured an awed bureaucrat. 

“But remember,” added the first, “you will be watching Bandit and Lion as well. All of their files will be sent to your computer. Do not share this information with anyone, understand?” 

“Was that quick enough for you Six?” 

“Perfect. Goodbye.” Six snapped, and with those words, the screen faded to black. Mute’s screen did as well, and numbly he closed and stored it away at his side.

“I have no say in this?”

“Yes. Thank you Mute. You are dismissed.” 

Mute stood and left without a word or even a nod of acknowledgment and walked the dark stone hallway. Its darkness and abandonment suddenly made sense. He chuckled, and the barren walls laughed back, cackled at him and his stupidity. It was then that he realized Rainbow was undeniably fucked. They were so fucking clueless and paranoid they were assigning him to watch his own team and allies. It was laughable to be this clueless, to be this deep in the dark. His mind wandered back to Lea-Wick’s photo, the blight smile, and the gleaming eyes. It was then he realized she had been laughing, finding mirth from their failure. 

He was lost, so much so he did not realize Six charging through the dark until his mask was ripped over his head and clattered at his feet. Then her hand seized the back of his neck. Mute reached for his pistol, but she swiftly slammed him headfirst into the stone wall. The impact brought stars to his eyes and his vision pitched. His ears rung as he sloppily grasped his knife and swung at her. His head was slammed a second time, and his hands went numb. His knife clattered to the floor. Her firm grip transferred to binding his hands at his back, forcing him deeper into the wall. His head whirled around, and a gleaming knife met his gaze, and sharp cold steel pressed his neck. 

“You move, and you’re dead. You raise your voice, and you’re dead. You refuse to answer my question, and you’re dead. Got it?” Six hissed. 

“Yes, ma'am.” Mute forced the words from his tightening throat. 

“Why the Hell were all of the operator’s files on your computer?” 

Mute opened his mouth to speak, but a monster invaded his mind, a monster of a human bearing a long staff, and shut his voice. 

“The fuck did I just say, Mark.” The knife bit into his neck, 

Mute shook his head, and his mouth fell agape, yet the monster in his mind hushed him. Be still my child, do not upset me with your words. Be silent and be smart, but the knife was digging further, and blood began to trickle down his neck. He opened his mouth one last time, but the monster was determined. Six’s hand tightened, her shoulder tensed, and she angled her knife. She was going to slit his neck. 

And so it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun duuunnnnn! That ended on a sour note didn't it? 
> 
> Sorry for being inactive during Thanksgiving, I was stuck on the pinnacle, but now I have found my motivation once again!


	6. Orange Earth

It had taken an eternity for the chopper to touch down.

It took even longer for Thatcher to step a single foot on solid earth.

Thatcher meandered towards the warped chain link fence, adjusting the neon yellow suit he had been forced to wear. He made a note of the paper cups and soda cans tossing about in the artificial wind as the helicopter pitched back into the sky, and the orange soil crunching below his boots. Past the fence, he was met with other yellow suits that scanned him once, then twice, and then once more for good measure before allowing him one step in the abandoned camp. 

They had their reasons, Rainbow had been on edge in recent days, but that didn't make it any less infuriating. Operators run thin by the sheer amount of turmoil that had become an unwelcome norm. Somewhere was a disaster Rainbow worthy. Even when the white-clad terrorists weren’t involved that small 'what if' still hung over the public. That was what brought Thatcher here. To a ghost town. Built to be temporary. Makeshift buildings covered in blue, bullet-riddled tarps flailing about in the breeze. Reports had said the camp must have held about forty. It was devoid of activity now. Not that it mattered the damage had already been done. The orange earth said it all, but not much. Six had simply informed him of the toxic environment, how it was caused by White Masks manufacturing their signature orange bioweapon, and sent him off. An unusual endeavor. Thatcher was generally needed on the attackers' side: to make use of his EMP’s and hatred of machinery, to storm a building and take out hostiles. 

But there was only bunsen burners, scientific voodoo, and stockpiled crates to be found; silent radios screaming corrupted tunes in vacant tents. 

Soon he comes across a boundary. Tape blaring 'Contaminated Soil' stretching across an area of rich orange earth. A tent sits atop the mess. Not even the EPA could pass it, yet footsteps had ventured past the line. Two pairs of boots imprinted in the earth heading straight towards the bullet-riddled tarp. 

No footsteps had left.

Rifle raised Thatcher steps beyond the boundary. He walks light and steady to the flap and halts. Hushed voices emanate from within, indistinguishable but indefinitely foreign. His gloved finger locked on the trigger, hands steady, breath slow, Thatcher bursts into the tent and scans for white.

He finds yellow. Two figures in identical hazard suits end mid-sentence to grasp their weapons and turn to face him. A decontamination kit lies at their feet. No one fires, and no one speaks. Their eyes dart from one to the next, and soon they spot familiarity beneath the suits. Simultaneously, their guns lower to the soil.

Finka and Lion’s surprise mirrors his own.

If silence could be stretched it, was a quivering line.

“Does Six know?” Finka finally asks.

“They directly assigned me." Thatcher grimaced as a question formed unwanted. "Does Six know about you?” 

The CBRN specialists exchange a look, Finka waving a hand in a silent question. Lion sagged, and then to Thatcher, nodded.

All three Operators let out a collective exasperated sigh.

“This is either a miscommunication, a poorly timed prank, or Six’s trust ran dry.” 

“I hate to admit it, but it is likely the latter.” Lion quipped.

“Wonderful.” Finka holstered her pistol and her free hand flexed, irritated. 

“If it makes you youngsters feel any better Six never told me I was on traitor lookout.” 

“I am not sure how I should feel.” Finka moved back down to the floor. “First this, now you. The bad news keeps on making itself known.”

“I find that offensive.” Thatcher stowed his rifle and smirked. 

“Your rifle offends me.” Finka didn't miss a beat, and Thatcher could tell Lion was desperately trying to keep his laughter in check.

“A’right. We’re even. You two have fun with your chemistry kit.” 

“And where are you going?” Lion snarks. 

Thatcher waved a hand towards the boxes on the opposite side of the tent filled to the brim with canisters. 

“They’re active,” Finka says, not looking up from her work. “Be gentle if you decide to handle them.” 

Thatcher knew how to handle the damn things, but the small warning did not go without thanks. Slowly he lowered one of the top boxes and pried open the lid. Inside were twenty silver canisters, and each had a symbol imprinted on the top. Carefully bringing one up to his face, two wings and an eye glared in the light. No one had ever seen or even mentioned a symbol like this before and, as far as he knew, the White Masks had no recognizable emblem. The empty canisters Rainbow had gathered after previous and recent attacks bore no mark. Lowering another crate, inside held the same symbol. Much to Finka’s surprise, he left the CBRN specialists alone to examine a nearby tent. Again, the wings and eye gleamed. He asked members of the EPA about the symbol. If the mark had ever appeared in their field. If a chemical was labeled in this manner. Many had noticed the recurring label, but responses to his inquiries over similar branding or origin were comprised of confused looks, shrugs, and shakes of a head. 

Perfect. Yet another unanswered question Six was going to lose her mind over. On the plus side, he had an empty canister to bring back to Doc and Smoke, so not a complete loss.

He moved the flap the slightest bit to the side when he paused. Finka was intently hacking away at the soil, but Lion was completely frozen, his eyes glued to the crates. 

Oh?

As soon as Thatcher stepped into the tent Lion’s eyes regretfully pulled from the canisters. 

Thatcher handed the empty silver tin to Lion. “Something you’d like to share with us?” He asked. 

For a split second Lion's eyes locked onto the symbol, and in that second a remorseful memory shot across his face, but as quickly as it appeared, it faded. “It’s nothing.” And in an attempt to justify, Lion robotically pushed the canister aside and continued his work. 

Thatcher was not at all convinced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! (Though this is rather late into said year). 
> 
> And before you charge at me pickaxes blazing, I know. This chapter, for what it is, took too long to finally publish. I should have worked on it during Winter, but that became wistful thinking. However, I have at least done something productive during those snowy weeks. I edited previous chapters, though they’re not massive changes. You don't have to reread the entire thing. I simply corrected grammatical errors. If any of you spot something I missed, please inform me. Thank you. 
> 
> As for the next chapter, I'll do my best. 
> 
> Thank you so much for all of your support thus far.


End file.
